Welsh Singer Duffy Withdrew from the Public Eye to Heal from Personal Trauma

Content warning: This article discusses rape, drugging, and abduction.

Over the years, Welsh singer and actress Duffy has kept a low profile, making only a few public appearances. In March 2025, she made a rare return to the spotlight — her first appearance since 2020, when she shared the heartbreaking reason behind her absence.

So, what happened to Duffy? Here's a look at the Grammy-winning singer's tragic story and why she stepped away from the public eye for so long.

In 2011, Duffy suddenly withdrew from the public eye without explanation, canceling performances and pausing new music releases. It wasn't until February 2020 that she disclosed the heartbreaking reason behind her disappearance — she chose to be out of the limelight to heal from a traumatic experience.

As reported by BBC News, Duffy revealed in a since-deleted Instagram post that, years earlier, she was "raped and drugged and held captive over some days."

"Please trust me, I am OK and safe now," she assured fans. "Of course, I survived [but] the recovery took time. There's no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine."

Duffy explained that she had remained silent for so long because she "did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes" but intended to share more when she was ready.

In April 2020, a few months after first breaking her silence, the "Mercy" singer shared more harrowing details in a deeply personal essay on her website. In the piece, Duffy revealed that she had been drugged at a restaurant on her birthday and taken to a foreign country, where she was held captive and drugged again for four weeks.

She recounted being raped in a hotel room by her captor, who made "veiled confessions of wanting to kill" her. Afterward, he flew Duffy back to the United Kingdom, where he continued to drug her in her own home for another four weeks.

"Rape stripped me of my human rights, to experience a life with autonomy from fear," she penned. "It has already stolen one-third of my life. Deep down I do know it would have been a shame and done such an immense disservice to my existence to just delete myself and forget what I had experienced in music publicly."

Duffy admitted that she had become estranged "from all" as she lived in fear, but she no longer felt ashamed of that frightening chapter of her life.

To those struggling, she offered support and words of encouragement: "If you are reading this and are sad, my encouragement to you is that … to know pain, you must first know how to love," she said. "Only the absence of love causes pain. So, go find it. Seek love in everything, even in a teacup."